Hanging up on public phone boxes

THEY are almost gone, but not forgotten - the telephone kiosks that dotted towns and villages around Ireland for over 90 years, writes Tom Gillespie.

The revolution in technology has changed our lifestyles and communications-wise, we are swamped with iPhones, iPads and digital and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat.

Back in the 1960s and ‘70s very few middle-class families had a telephone installed in their homes. Instead, in order to contact someone away from home, we used the public telephone.

The nearest one to our house was the kiosk outside John Heneghan’s Pharmacy on Ellison Street. If that was engaged, and there was usually a queue, you made your way to the old post office, further up the street, to the two phone boxes that were located there in front of Brady’s shop.

Callers put in their coins and pressed either button ‘A’ to be connected or button ‘B’ to get your money back if no-one answered.

There were other phone kiosks, that I remember, at the top of MacHale Road - which is still there - and at the top of Blackfort.

At all rural post offices a yellow and green kiosk was always close by and was the only source of communication for locals with the outside world – other than the traditional letter.

I remember on one occasion when I had to use a public phone as part of my duties as secretary of the Castlebar Song Contest.

It was in the 1970s and my task was to contact Val Joyce of Airs and Races fame on RTÉ Radio One to invite him to be a compere at one of the contest nights in October.

It was a Saturday afternoon and I left home to go to the offices of The Connaught Telegraph to make the call before he went on air.

However, I discovered on arrival at the office that I had come without a key.

Time was of the essence and it did not allow me to return and retrieve the key so I scurried to the kiosk at the post office and made the contact.

I discovered that at the end of 2015, there were some 900 public pay phones remaining in Ireland, but 621 were being used for less than a minute per day on average, with less than 30 seconds of this usage relating to freephone and emergency services calls.

Eir is permitted to remove a pay phone unit if the average usage over a period of six months falls below these thresholds.

An eir spokeswoman said that based on their data, from July 2014 to December 2015, the least used pay phones in the country were located in Castletownbere, Mayo, Dublin, Mullingar and Galway. While there were no phone boxes registering no usage, the usage on some would be low, particularly where there were double kiosks.

There was a time when communication was not so simple. Recent generations have become accustomed to instant real time information, while unaware of a more simplistic era.

For many years the Irish public relied upon the local Telefón box as their only means of communication with family and friends. The first Telefón box was installed as far back as 1925 and to this day it can be found on Dawson Street in Dublin.

In 1932 the boxes were fitted throughout Dublin in response to the Catholic Eucharistic Congress, which helped celebrate the 1,500th year of St. Patrick's arrival to Ireland.

The increased popularity from this event led to their installation throughout the length and breadth of the island.

The boxes were modernised in later years but it is the old iconic boxes with the unmistakable Telefón branding that have a place in the hearts and minds of generations of Irish people.

The Telefón boxes not only had a practical purpose but they also came to have a major social significance with the Irish population. Once as important a structure to many as the bank and even the church, each Telefón box had a story to tell.

Throughout the villages of Ireland they brought news of births and deaths and played a central role in the lives of those both lovesick and homesick.

During the 1980s and ’90s the telephone boxes were modernised as they still held an important role in everyday life.

In recent years, with the development of mobile technology, an old way of life and Irish culture has been forgotten and many phone boxes sadly began to fall into disrepair.

But there were many grotty phone boxes as a result of abuse, vandalism and neglect.

It was not unusual on a Monday morning to see the wanton damage, particularly close to centres of entertainment, where the kiosks were used as a toilet.

Likewise, the phone pieces were sometimes wrenched from the main apparatus, rendering the phone inoperable.

Many a date was initiated and cancelled with a call from a pay phone. I suppose not seeing the person face-to-face made it easier if you did not fancy the rendezvous.

Back in the day all calls went through the operator who would book the number you required and ring you back and put you through.

I recall covering a story for The Connaught Telegraph where in a certain village there was a ‘ring code’ for each household who had a phone.

If the phone rang once, it was for family ‘A’, twice for family ‘B’ and three times for family ‘C’, and so on.

There was always the suspicion that the operator was listening in, something I very much doubt. They had enough to do without eavesdropping.

All of this must seem completely alien to today’s mobile phone brigade who have instant contacts with each other with free text or at the click of an app or button.

But while the fear of a ‘nosey’ operator in my days was always there, it is nothing compared to who might be listening or monitoring your calls today.